How to Lose Friends and Paint Shoes All Day

TRIAL AND ERROR
I got into graffiti in 1993 and racking spray paint and painting all over the city became my top priorities. I would run around all night in San Francisco’s dirtiest crevices painting my name, and ink would get on my hands, clothes, and shoes in the process. Keeping my sneakers looking fresh was impossible at the time, so shoes only served a functional purpose. However, around 2001 sneakers changed the course of my life. A friend who liked my lettering style asked me to write his name on a sneaker and I got some money. Instant dollar signs clouded my vision and somewhat naively, I figured that I could make easy money by painting customs.

Around that time, the sneaker culture hype was just beginning to roll-out and that also swept me a bit further into the scene. I started selling more and more shoes, but I had no idea how to make it all work as a business. Hypebeast and Freshness didn’t even exist yet, and the kids on Niketalk were not supportive of my style because it was so drastically different from Methamphibian and SBTG. I was also going crazy trying to find the right paint – early customers were coming back to me with cracked jobs – there was simply no place to get any info! I was on my own trying to figure out the biz the hard way – through trial and error. Painting shoes was an all-consuming mix of frustration and breakthroughs. I did figure out what paint to use, how to design a website, how to get press and market myself as well as how to deal with customers and corporations on a business level. I was getting hundreds of emails a week, I was in Time Magazine and I was flown all over the country with the Sneaker Pimps tour. Sometimes I’d get a nice chunk of change, but I was frustrated because I couldn’t translate all those emails into consistent green. There were lots of ups and downs and difficult customers. Eventually I started to dislike painting sneakers because I didn’t feel like I was in control so I made a deal with myself – I would only do what I wanted to do (Or at least I’d only do it for a nice stack of money). I then decided to paint my final pair of customs. I bought the most expensive pair of Christian Dior sneakers I could find and painted everything I ever did on that one pair, kind of like a one-shoe retrospective. Since then I’ve used my experiences to transition into other creative outlets, designing at Morning Breath Inc and after some classes at F.I.T., I got a job designing casual shoes for a corporate footwear company in NYC. As of today, I’m only working for myself on my own projects and I’m very happy about the creative direction of my work. Anyway, enough about me. Let’s talk about a few of the challenges customizers face and some potential solutions.

PRICING AND SUICIDAL HOOKUP
I would often spend 40, 60, 80 or more hours painting one shoe, and in the case of my final pair, I worked on them sporadically for almost two years! So the biggest question is – how the hell do you figure out the right price to charge if shoes take that long to create? Let’s put yourself in a typical scenario. Say you want to be compensated $12 an hour for a custom job. (When you’re 15 that may be plenty, but believe me, $12 an hour doesn’t cut it, especially in NYC.) Now let’s say it takes you 40 hours at $12 per hour – that adds up to $480 of labor and doesn’t even include the cost of the shoe, paint, rent for your studio and the time it takes to get good photos, update your online site, store, blog, MySpace page etc. So when your school friends want you to do a custom and you quote a price like $480 for labor, most likely they will look at you like you are crazy. Some people may even get literally mad at you for asking what they feel is an unreasonable price. You’ll probably feel guilty and end up caving in and doing the shoe for a much lower price. Potential customers might even justify the price by telling you, ‘Hook me up and then you’ll get tons of customers and make tons of money’. Or better yet, ‘My cousin works at MTV and can get your shoes on Jay-Z. Hook me up first and then you’ll be famous.’ ...Yeah right.

While hooking people up may work at certain times, my advice is to learn to say NO, even to family and close friends. If you’re feeling generous and want to offer a discount, that’s fine, but as a business plan, hook-ups are suicide. I remember early on friends wanted stuff for essentially no money.

TIP 1: DONT BELIEVE THE HYPE.Family, co-workers and cute girls would give me shoes, jackets and t-shirts to airbrush. One day I counted 38 pairs of unpainted shoes, dozens of jackets and a pile of t-shirts that were supposed to be painted basically for free. Family, co-workers and cute girls would give me shoes, jackets and t-shirts to airbrush. One day I counted 38 pairs of unpainted shoes, dozens of jackets and a pile of t-shirts that were supposed to be painted basically for free. Then I did the math. Even if I did a quickie 8 or 10 hour job on each shoe and spent only an hour on each t-shirt, that would still be around 500 hours of work, almost three months of full-time grind! And all for free! Needless to say, that is not good. Nobody calls up a plumber and asks him to fix a shitty toilet for free because he’ll get ‘hooked up’ with other shitty jobs. Creative people shouldn’t be treated any differently. If you are professional, you should be compensated. If you want this or any other business venture to work out financially, you need to ask for the price you deserve. TIP 2: SAY NO TO YOUR FRIENDS. THEY'LL THINK YOU'RE A HARD ASS BUT IF YOU CAN'T SAY NO, YOU'LL NEVER GET ANYWHERE.



CREATIVE FREEDOM VS CLIENTS GREAT IDEA
Who has creative control? You or the customer? Sometimes I would have drug dealers give me a wad of cash and tell me to paint whatever I wanted. Usually they would end up with the dopest shoes (literally) because I could push things in a new creative direction and everyone was happy. But that was rare. How many times did I hear this, ‘Can you do me one of those Sponge Bob/ Tupac/ Goofy shoes like at Fulton Street Mall?’ I wasn’t too excited about a girl’s rainbow theme, but I did it because I needed the money. Then she didn’t want the shoes! Can you imagine spending the next five days painting a hip hop Rastafarian dressed in pink Gucci clothes smoking a giant doobie? Yeah, I did that one too. I can only imagine the stupid stuff people ask tattoo artists to do, but unlike tattooists, sneaker customizers do not have industry-standard hourly rates that would justify doing such questionable jobs.So what’s the solution? For me, doing art that I didn’t feel passionate about was no different to being a retail slave, which led to procrastination and a whole slew of other problems. One extreme response is to never take custom orders. If people want to buy what you make, great. If not, tough shit. On the downside, that’s problematic when you paint something amazing in a size 10, and of course everyone in a size 11 tells you they would have bought the shoes. You will certainly be better off if you learn to politely turn down silly concepts and encourage your clients to buy what you’re good at making. TIP 3: CREATE A LIBRARY OF DESIGNS THAT CUSTOMERS CAN CHOOSE FROM AND SLIGHTLY ALTER SO THAT THEY STILL GET A PERSONALIZED SHOE. THAT'S WHAT TATTOOISTS DO.

WORKING WITH SHOES
Some customizers think that if they could just get their shoes in their local cool-guy quickstrike sneaker shop then things would be sweet and they’d soon be rich and famous. I’ll tell you from experience that the cool stores (you know the ones) are not interested in anything but their Nike and New Era accounts and won’t be too excited about the idea. Those shops know that kids are literally lining up to spend money and some even tell their employees to treat customers like shit. So don’t be surprised if you get dissed hard after approaching these stores. If you do go in to talk business, remember that most of the guys on the sales floor are just retail clerks getting paid in the form of low wages, discounted shoes, and promo t-shirts. They may even be bitter because they work in such a cool place yet still can’t pay their own rent.

TIP 4: FIGURE OUT WHO ACTUALLY MAKES DECISIONS AT THE STORES AND GO STRAIGHT TO THEM. The buyers or owners will probably blow you off and you might feel crushed, but don’t take it personally. When they opened shop, I’m sure you weren’t in their business plan but if your work is strong and you knock on enough doors, eventually some will show interest. If you do set up a deal, make sure to start out very slow, maybe just one shoe to see how it goes. You’ll find out if the store treats you professionally and whether they pay you in a timely manner. TIP 5: TRUST IS GOOD BUT IT'S ESSENTIAL TO HAVE SOME SORT OF CONTRACT THAT OUTLINES PAYMENT TERMS ETC.

However, there is still a major problem with working with stores. It’s a scientific fact that you can’t make money. Shops want half the profit. More than likely they will also want to work on a commission basis so there’s less risk involved. And to make it even harder, they will probably tell you they can only price the shoes at some shitty low amount so that your shoes don’t die on the shelves. Earlier I mentioned an hourly rate for your hard labor. Now imagine taking that rate and cutting it in half now that the store has to make half too. Instead of your not-so-decent $12 an hour, you’re making $6 an hour. How’s that sound? Like a shit sandwich if you ask me. TIP 6: EITHER FIGURE OUT HOW TO PAINT AMAZING SHOES VERY, VERY FAST OR OPEN UP YOUR OWN SHOP ONLINE.TIP

7: WHEN EVERYONE IS LINING UP FOR QUICKSTRIKES, HAND OUT A PROMO FLYER. I PICKED UP MORE SALES THAT WAY THAN I EVER DID HAVING MY SHOES IN ANY STORE.

THE INFAMOUS SHOE DEAL
Ah yes, every sneaker customizer’s wet dream – the sneaker deal. Not to alienate my fellow customizers out there, but they usually all say exactly the same thing: ‘Yeah someday I’ll paint shoes for Kanye, Nike will pick up my designs and Michael Jordan will ask me to paint his underpants blah blah blah...’ I won’t lie. In the beginning I used to have the same fantasy. A long time ago I naively got a job at Niketown thinking it would catapult me straight into the laps of the bigwigs up in Portland. Instead, I ended up quitting after management threatened to fire me for ‘distracting customers’ with my custom Jordans. So much for that idea.

TIP 8: DON'T GET A JOB AT NIKETOWN.The closest I ever got to a shoe deal was having my customs bootlegged in China. I was mad at first, but later I thought of it as a backhanded compliment. So I wouldn’t say I’m THE authority on getting a deal, but I do know it’s wise not to get overly hung up on the idea. There is a marketing agenda for every collab that’s not complicated to figure out. Brands want to align their product with the coolest creatives by sponging the street-cred off artists, rappers and celebrities. Then everyone associates their sneaks with being cool and young and street. Artists usually go along for the ride because the money can be good, and they can say they did something sweet for a corporation. Often, it can be a big win for everyone involved. But if you’re not one of those mega-cool artists oozing with celebrity, you’ll be holding your breath until your face pops waiting for that deal to arrive. The cold truth is that if you’re relying on an offer to make you the shit, then your work is probably not the shit, and Nigo won’t be returning your calls anytime soon.

THE 'OTHER' SHOE DEAL
There is another solution if you won’t be a celebrity anytime soon. It doesn’t even require Phil Knight to come knocking at your door. If you really want to have your designs made, become a footwear designer for a brand. Yeah I know that opens a whole other can of worms that is beyond the scope of this article, but it’s not as hard as you might think. I didn’t even get close to a degree and I was able to get a job designing shoes. Take a few classes at a fashion/design school and learn pattern making. There are plenty of free resources online that will point you in the right direction. Core77.com has a great forum for aspiring footwear designers and sneakerfreaker.com has a series of interviews with industry folk as well.On the downside, even the ‘cool’ companies can be very conservative and unpleasant to work for. There’s lame design reviews and you’ll have to spend all day making tedious spec-sheets in Excel. Flying to China every few weeks to spend the day in hot factories is only glamorous the first time. But hey, you’re making shoes right?
TIP 9: DO NOT COME OUT OF YOUR STUDIO UNTIL YOUR WORK IS THE SHIT. YOUR SHOE DEAL PROBLEM WILL SOLVE ITSELF.TIP

10: KNOWING ABOUT FOOTWEAR DESIGN WILL HELP YOU MAKE BETTER CUSTOM SHOES.

STRAIGHT TALK FROM A VET
At one point I remember wanting to give up art and go straight to Wall Street. So I got a bunch of books and long story short, I found out most Wall Street guys work like slaves only to start living at retirement. (Why does it seem like most careers are like that?) I was disappointed, but grateful for the straight talk. So, if you’re considering pursuing custom sneakers as a profession, I hate to burst your bubble, but I will anyway. Don’t think of sneaker painting as a profession. If you want to paint shoes for fun, that’s fine. You may even figure out how to make a few bucks. But be aware that there are many more lucrative ways to make money from your talent than painting sneakers. Go to school or better yet, become a designer. The money is better and more consistent. If you cringe at the idea of working for someone else, take a screen printing class and make t-shirts.Of course there are always exception. If you have a vision that’ll blow up the game, awesome for you! Painting custom sneakers is still a relatively new art form, so there’s still room to make your mark. Just remember that you’ll have to take creative and business risks and probably face a lot of rejection and disappointment. No matter what you decide to do, it will all be worth it if you listen to your gut, have fun, and follow your passion. Good Luck!